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Gemvara raises $25 million

Customized jewelry retailer Gemvara.com has raised $25 million in new investment funding, the merchant says.

Norwest Venture Partners led the Series D round and all of Gemvara’s existing investors including Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners and Balderton Capital contributed.

Sergio Monsalve of Norwest will join Gemvara’s board of directors. “Gemvara is a very strong company with a stellar team, and happens to be at the epicenter of three e-commerce megatrends that we have been watching closely– the emergence of personalization, the rapid growth of Pinterest as a ‘wish list’ aggregator and the rising adoption of the iPad as a visual shopping platform,” Monsalve says. “Gemvara is quickly becoming a major player in this rapidly changing next generation e-commerce sector and we’re looking forward to partnering with the team to grow the company further.”

Gemvara, No. 605 in the Internet Retailer Second 500 Guide, has 1,212 followers on Pinterest and says it gets about 3.36% of traffic from the social network.

The retailer plans to use the funds to further enhance the customer shopping experience. “This investment accelerates our mission of having more loyal customers than any other jeweler,” says CEO Matt Lauzon.

Brian Kalma, chief experience officer Gemvara.com will speak this Thursday at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2012 in Chicago in a session titled "Interest in Pinterest: How the social site drives retail traffic."